The Era of Gods

At this time, the situation was as follows: as the battle wore on, the Children of Nightmare’s remaining subordinates became fewer and fewer. The troops who died in battle were absorbed and incubated by the flesh mushroom blanket extending from the mother nest of flesh and blood to spawn even stronger flesh monsters. However, this conversion was limited. After all, there was only one motherbody, and only so many could be transformed from the numerous casualties. Most of the flesh accumulated underground and could not be utilized.

This attrition continued for nearly half a month. Lin Xiao had been patiently waiting, and finally, on the sixteenth day, tens of thousands of transcendent water elementals surrounded and killed the last guard around the mother nest of flesh and blood, defeating the massive motherbody and seizing the mother seed.

The mother nest of flesh and blood was located at the very heart of the Children of Nightmare’s realm. Less than ten kilometers from this motherbody was the true body of the Child of Nightmare, analogous to the location of the Divine Palace in Lin Xiao’s God’s realm that housed the true body.

With the collapse of the flesh nest, the converging Nightmare Power dissipated, allowing a glimpse of a shadow even larger than the mother nest of flesh and blood in the distance.

That was the source of the Nightmare Realm. This vast Nightmare Domain had originally extended outwards from this point, with the relentless Nightmare Power also radiating from here. The Child of Nightmare dominated the core, overseeing and ruling the entire domain.

But today, its reign came to an end.

After resting for two days, another seventy thousand transcendent water elementals were summoned to launch the final assault on the core—Nightmare God Mountain.

Unlike the human divine realms, there was no God Country or Prayer in the Nightmare core, only a few core guardians, including the legendary six-winged wingman.

But a lone legend could certainly not withstand the relentless waves of transcendent water elementals, and they were eventually surrounded and killed after slaying two to three thousand Rank 6 transcendent water elementals in the chaotic battle.

Once the guards were dead, it was time to face the true body of the Child of Nightmare.

The Child of Nightmare’s control over its own realm was suppressed to the extreme at this time. Even its consciousness was confined to the core vicinity, having lost control over most of its domain’s expanse, which resulted in a significant decrease in power.

Facing such exceedingly frustrating tactics, It felt extremely stifled, yet was helpless.

It now deeply regretted not committing to an all-out battle sooner. Although it was at a slight disadvantage before, the situation wasn’t completely hopeless, and there had been a glimmer of chance. But hesitation led to the current predicament with no way out.

There was no turning the tables.

Without outside interference, after putting up a valiant resistance for four days, the Child of Nightmare’s core shell was finally breached, and, having exhausted all its power, it was cut down.

From a distance, Lin Xiao observed the true form of the Child of Nightmare, which resembled an enlarged version of a giant serpent. The corpse was over seventy meters long with more than ten legs, appearing to be a four-legged serpent-like creature transformed by Nightmare Power. At the moment of its death, a black light shot up into the sky and returned to the core of the Nightmare realm.

This reminded him of the Child of Nightmare he had seen in the strange world before, which looked human but had a serpent-like, chilling demeanor.

With the death of the Child of Nightmare, Lin Xiao felt the Nightmare Divine Realm lose all resistance, and he swiftly urged his own realm to devour the Nightmare domain.

Outwardly, this was manifested by the crumbling edges of the Nightmare Realm, turning into countless granular mists of light that streamed into Lin Xiao’s divine realm through the passage between the two worlds.

Located in the core of his God’s realm, Lin Xiao’s true body immediately felt a continuous influx of divine essence integrating into his realm, causing the slowly expanding edges of his divine realm to grow and enlarge at a frenetic pace.

According to the rules, he had a certain timeframe to devour the opposing God’s realm, starting from the fall of the Child of Nightmare, with the duration depending on the size and strength of the enemy realm. Generally, the larger and stronger the realm, the longer the process could last.

How long exactly Lin Xiao wasn’t sure, as he had never before engaged in a deadly fight with another divine territory player.

Regardless of how long it took, the chance to devour was a boon.

Moreover, seizing the opportunity of this devouring process, he ordered his Clan to disperse throughout the entire Nightmare Realm to scavenge its resources wildly.

Most of the resources were of no use to him, or rather, they were difficult to utilize, but the most common mineral resources were universal. He gathered them and deposited them into the Fire Elemental Domain, where they would be purified from the remnants of Nightmare Power with the help of the Power of Flames.

Besides, Lin Xiao himself entered the core of the Nightmare Realm to plunder the core treasures of the Child of Nightmare.

Just as Lin Xiao’s divine realm had a Divine Palace at its core, the Nightmare Realm also had a core, located within the black mountain formed by Nightmare Power. Any cards the realm had assimilated or any private treasures like Ancient Treasures would be found within.

For instance, if someone were to defeat Lin Xiao, they could enter his Divine Palace and plunder everything, including the various cards and miraculous constructions he had captured within his realm, as well as his Soul of God.

Generally, this was limited to physical item cards and the like. Special consumable cards like a Breeding Card that had already been used could not be stripped away again.

Since the Child of Nightmare had already fallen, the Nightmare Divine Realm had lost its master, and the rules within the core were ineffective. Or it could be said that their power was greatly diminished, to the point where Lin Xiao found them almost non-existent.

Stepping into the core palace, the first thing Lin Xiao saw hanging from the dome of the Nightmare Palace was… a piece of paper?

It seemed to be a dark-colored parchment, and he could vaguely see a layer of transparent light isolating the black Nightmare Power of the dome. Through the Nightmare Power and the transparent light, the parchment was inscribed with dense, unknown script.

Lin Xiao had learned many of the common languages of the major races in the Crystal Wall Universe, including Dragon, Elf, Dwarf, and Demon languages, but he had never seen the script written on this parchment.

Clearly, the Child of Nightmare had previously been using the power of the Nightmare Domain to erode the power on the parchment, what in Eastern terms would be called refining.

It seemed there was still some resistance left on the paper, indicating it had not been fully refined yet.

He waved his hand, dispelling the Nightmare Power within the Divine Palace, and the paper slowly floated down. At the same time, it revealed the numerous cards embedded in the dome. The Nightmare World also used cards to strengthen its domain, but these cards were composed of Nightmare Power, and their contents were mostly filled with it, making them unusable directly by the Human Divine Realm.

Thirty-seven cards were retrievable from the Nightmare Realm, and he took them all out without caring what they were, including two Ancient Treasures in the center of the dome that were also eroded by Nightmare Power.

As well as the Soul of God from the Children of Nightmare, who died in their True Body and melded into the core of the Nightmare. This contained the essence of the Children of Nightmare and seemed to harbor some secrets.

For the time being, Lin Xiao had no time to study this. He first checked out the Ancient Treasures.

The Ancient Treasures were all First Level, with very simple effects, adding one point each to Constitution and Strength.

He stored them away and then took down the paper to check its properties, revealing a hint of surprise.

It turned out to be a Rank 2 Ancient Treasure, not a part of some Divine Artifact Book as he had imagined.

In his memory, all the famous Divine and Sub-god Artifacts like the Book of Nasir, Book of All Laws, Book of Sanctity, Book of Filth, etc., were in the form of books. He had initially thought this was a page from some book-class artifact, only to find it was a Rank 2 Ancient Treasure.

However, that said, although it was not the page of a Divine Artifact Book he had imagined but an Ancient Treasure, it was indeed part of a book, which itself was an Ancient Treasure.

Put simply, this Rank 2 Ancient Treasure, which looked like a page from a book, was just part of a super Ancient Treasure that was in the form of a book.

The name of the Ancient Treasure was quite awesome, called the Book of Law, and this page of law was named Spring.

Unlike other Ancient Treasures, normal First Level Ancient Treasures have only one attribute, Rank 2 have two attributes, and Rank 3 Top-tier Heirlooms have three attributes, whether passive or active. This one, fully named as the Book of Law: Spring—a Rank 2 Ancient Treasure—only has one effect.

Ancient Treasure: Book of Law: Spring (Rank 2 Ancient Treasure)

Passive Effect: Spring is the season of revival for all beings. When loaded into the Divine Realm, during the spring season, it significantly enhances the Reproduction effect and speed for all beings, and every week, all creatures within the Divine Realm receive a minor Purification effect.

Evaluation: Spring has come, and all things are revived.

This kind of Ancient Treasure is quite magical. It doesn’t add any attributes, and the effect doesn’t seem that impressive, but once loaded into the Divine Realm and given time, its powerful use will become quite apparent.

A pity that it’s limited to spring only—if he could collect the law pages for all four seasons and form a cycle, that would be great.

After looting all the spoils of war, Lin Xiao returned to his own Divine Realm. There was nothing left to loot; after all, different races have different power systems, and most of the resources from the Nightmare Divine Realm were useless to him.

Taking advantage of the ongoing absorption of the Divine Realm, Lin Xiao went back to his Divine Palace to start tallying his spoils of war. Those he could use, he used; those he could not, he disposed of.

His current state was abnormal, and after fully absorbing the Nightmare Realm, he would disconnect himself from the Divine Realm and return to that peculiar world. It was foreseeable that he would encounter more Children of Nightmare and face full-scale wars that would be a matter of life or death, so he needed to strengthen his Divine Realm as much as possible.

First, he had Slarda enhance the construction of faith, and without affecting the faith, hold as many Masses and large-scale Prayers as possible to accumulate Divine Power and prepare for the next battle.

If he had had enough Divine Power in this war, he wouldn’t have had to fight so cautiously and shamelessly.

Next, he planned to adjust the several Extraordinary Abilities on the Extraordinary Magic Network.

The previous battle had shown that although the Extraordinary Abilities on the Magic Net were powerful, except for summoning Water Elementals, they were not very practical. More to the point, the requirements for use were too high.

Well, except for the Foresight transcendental ability.

This Extraordinary Magic Network, which he had imagined every member of his Clan could use, was actually only frequently usable by the Wise Goblins and Supreme Naga. The Earth Dwarves could barely use it once, and the Small Fishman couldn’t use it at all. This limitation was too great; it was a waste of this treasure’s power.

He envisioned adjusting the five Extraordinary Abilities on it, changing what should be changed and weakening what should be weakened.

After all, these were only Rank 1 Extraordinary Abilities. If the requirements were already so high now, what would he do when the treasure upgraded and could load Rank 2 Extraordinary Abilities?

The first, Foresight—this was converted from his own Extraordinary Ability, and with its small consumption, even a Small Fishman could use it, so this didn’t need changing.

The second, Godspeed—Lin Xiao pondered for a moment and then cut its power in half.

Extraordinary Ability: Godspeed.

Passive Attribute: Increase Speed by 50%, ignores normal slowing abilities.

Active Attribute: Consumption

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